Events
There are a variety of periodic events (physical and virtual) important to the indie games community. Independent Games Summit, or IGS, is the talking part of the IGF, where people go up and talk about their games, development or post mortems, or certain concepts or attitudes. There are also a lot of mainstream developers doing talks here, but they're often not as interesting. The talks are recorded and stored in the GDC Vault, where you can access them if you have a pass for GDC, but some of them are released for free. Game Jams Game Jams are get togethers for people around a certain area, like Austin, Winnipeg, Berlin or London, often around a weekend, people bring their previous work or work on a new game, freely collaborating with others. *The Indie Game Jam - The original Game Jam *TIGjam - TIG Jam in Texas or California *BIGjam - Berlin Indie Game Jam *TIGjam UK - TIG Jam in London, UK *TIGjam Winnipeg (also known as PegJam) - TIG Jam in Winnipeg, Canada *Tojam - Toronto (Canada) Jam *No More Sweden - Takes place in Sweden, with mostly Scandinavian developers. *Buenos Aires Jam pic *Build Your Own Game (BYOG) - takes place in India (predominantly for Indian developers, organised by an Indian indie developer community - Indie GameDev India) Showcases Showcases are events where games can be submitted to, before getting curated, or hand picked to be shown around a certain theme or appropriate for a certain place or setting. *Gamma Previously showcased in Montreal, Canada, the latest showing was at GDC 2010. It's a sort of games/music/culture show. *Sense of Wonder Night Showcase in Japan, during Tokyo Games Show Inspired by the EGW at IGF *Slamdance Guerilla Games Competition this later turned into: *Indiecade http://www.indiecade.com/ With various showings, like E3, GameCity and others *Pax10 http://www.paxsite.com/paxprime/index.php Penny Arcade picking 10 entrants for showing at the Penny Arcade Expo, now 2 times a year, one on each coast of the USA. *Experimental Gameplay Workshop Looking for experimental and innovative games to show *Indie Games Arcade http://www.indiegamesarcade.com/ Mostly UK centric, but open to global submissions *Fantastic Arcade http://www.fantasticfest.com/arcade/ The first edition took place on 23-26 september, 2010 in Austin, Texas Competitions 'Monthly' *Games Collective Pageant http://www.thegamescollective.org/ - Often a month long thing. *Klik of the Month Klub http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/44 - 2 hour monthly competition, encouraging people to finish something, anything. *Ludum Darehttp://www.ludumdare.com/ - A 48 hour competition, based around a given theme. 'A few times a year' *TIGSource Competition - There are multiple competitions a year, based around a specific theme. *Jayisgames Casual Gameplay Competition - Must use a browser based platform such as Flash, javascript/html5 or Unity. CGDC8 *Yoyogames Competition http://www.yoyogames.com/ - Game Maker competition with a cashprize of $1000 for 1st place, $500 for 2nd and $250 for 3rd. *Competition Four Digits RPG4D - Hosted at 64digits. Themed competitions with prizes donated by the community. 'Yearly' *Independent Games Festival http://www.igf.com/ *Unity Awards http://unity3d.com/contest/ A yearly contest for Unity developers, with categories: Best iPhone Game, Best Overall Game, Best Technical Achievement and Best Visual Design. *indiePub Games Competition, previously 2Bee Games Competition contest rules *48-Hour Ohrrpgce Contest Yearly Ohrrpgce contest where contestants attempt to create a 48-hour game, can work in pairs but not larger teams. Started 2000 and has continued until the present day. 'Generationally' *Make Something Unreal http://www.makesomethingunreal.com/ This competition runs for 2 years, split into 4 6-month long phases, to get people to work with a new release of the Unreal Engine. Organized once per Unreal Engine release. 'Only Held Once' *Finish Your Game Contest A contest by James Paige held on Slime Salad where contestants would try to finish an old game that they had previously abandoned. The rewards were small sums of money ($5) and a copy of Immortal Defense for the finalists. 'Expired' *Human Day Contest A contest held on Human Day (which coincides with Christmas), usually themed, judged by a secret panel of Heroists. Ran from 2001 to 2004, but was abandoned thereafter due to lack of time and the gradual dissolution of the Heroist group. Benefits It's important to note that quite a few developers started getting their name out by entering competitions *Farbs with ROM CHECK FAIL for Video Game Name Generator, a tigsource compo *Passage by Jason Rohrer for Gamma 256 *Eversion by Zaratustra for the Commonplace Book Competition of TIGSource. *Hazard: the Journey of Life by Alexander Bruce for Sense of Wonder Night *Eufloria by Alex May and Rudolf Kremers sprouted from the TIGSource Procedural Generation competition entry Dyson. *Enviro-Bear 2000 for the TIGSource Cockpit Competition Various IGF winners, like: *Gish by Edmund McMillen and Cryptic Sea *Darwinia by Introversion Software *Aquaria by Alec Holowka and Derek Yu *Crayon Physics Deluxe by Petri Purho *Blueberry Garden by Erik Svedang Category:top-level articles